Sophia James - The Cinderella Countess

He’d looked just so absurdly rich. She wondered where he lived here in London. One of the beautiful squares in the centre of Mayfair, she supposed. Places into which she had seldom ventured.

Would it be to one of those town houses that he would take her in order to tend to his sister? Would his family be in attendance? Alicia had told her the Earl had mentioned a mother who enjoyed tea.

She had not addressed him properly. She had realised this soon after he had left because she had asked Milly, the kitchen maid, if she knew how one was supposed to speak to an earl. The girl had been a maid in the house of a highly born lord a few years before.

My lord Earl was definitely an error. According to Milly she could have used ‘my lord’ or ‘your lordship’, or ‘Lord Thornton’. Belle had decided when she saw him next she would use the second.

At least that was cleared up and sleep felt a little nearer. She had prepared all the tinctures, medicines and ointment she would take with her to see Lord Thornton’s sister so it was only a case of getting herself ready now.

What could she wear? The question both annoyed and worried her. She should not care about such shallow things, but she did. She wanted suddenly to look nice for the mother who enjoyed tea. That thought made her smile and she lay back down on her bed watching the moon through undrawn curtains.

It had rained yesterday, but tonight it was largely clear.

As she closed her eyes, the last image she saw before sleep was that of the Earl of Thornton observing her with angry shock as she had wiped away the hot tea from his skin-tight pantaloons.

Miss Smith was sitting on the front doorstep of her Whitechapel house when his carriage pulled up to the corner on the dot of nine. She held a large wicker basket in front of her, covered almost entirely by a dark blue cloth.

The oddness of a woman waiting alone outside her home and completely on time had Lytton waving away the footman as he jumped down to the ground.

Miss Annabelle Smith appeared pleased to see him as she stood, her hand shading her face and the odd shape of her hat sending a shadow down one side of her cheek.

‘I thought perhaps you might have decided not to come,’ she said, her fingers keeping the cloth on her basket anchored in the growing breeze.

The heightened notice of her as a woman he’d felt yesterday returned this morning and Lytton shoved it away.

‘My chaperon will be here in just a moment as Aunt Alicia would not settle until I agreed to have her with me. I hope that is all right with you, your lordship?’

She knew, now, how to address him. He found himself missing the ‘my lord Earl’.

‘Of course.’ The words sounded more distant than he had meant them to be. She looked tired, dark circles under her eyes, and there was a cut on her thumb. He hoped the injury had not come about in the preparation of his sister’s medicines.

Pulling the three pounds he had ready from his pocket, he offered them to her.

‘If it is too much I quite understand,’ she said, but he shook his head.

‘I can afford it, Miss Smith, and I am grateful that you would consent to attending my sister at such short notice.’

The same velvet purse he had seen yesterday came out of her pocket, the notes carefully tucked within it.

‘It will be useful to buy more supplies for those who cannot pay. There are many such folk here.’

‘You have lived in this house for a while?’

‘We have, your lordship. It is rented, but it is home.’

‘Yet you do not speak with the accent of the East End?’

She looked away, distracted as the same woman he had seen yesterday joined them, busy fingers tying the ribbons on her bonnet.

‘This is my friend, Mrs Rosemary Greene.’

‘We met briefly yesterday. Ma’am.’ He tipped his head and the older woman blushed dark red, but was saved from answering as Annabelle Smith caught at her arm and shepherded her towards the conveyance. When the footman helped each of them up Miss Smith took a deep breath, giving Lytton the impression she did not much wish to get in. He took the seat opposite them as the door closed, listening to the horses being called on.

‘Did you ever read the fairy tale Cendrillon by Charles Perrault, your lordship?’ Her dimples were on display, picked out by the incoming sunshine.

‘I did, Miss Smith.’

‘Your carriage reminds me of that. Ornate and absurdly comfortable.’

‘You read it in French?’

‘When I was a child I lived in France for a time with my aunt.’

The traffic at this time of the morning was busy and they were travelling so slowly it seemed as if all of London was on the road.

The silence inside the carriage lengthened, their last exchange throwing up questions. She did not give the impression of one born abroad for her words held only the accent of English privilege and wealth. How could that be?

He hoped like hell that any of his extended family would not converge on his town house this morning, for he wanted to allow Miss Smith some time to talk with his sister by herself. His mother would be present, of course, but she was lost in her own sadness these days and appeared befuddled most of the time. Today such confusion would aid him.

It was as if Lucy’s sickness had ripped the heart out of the Thorntons and trampled any happiness underfoot. It was probably why he had taken up with Susan Castleton to be honest, Lytton thought, her sense of devil-may-care just the attitude he had needed to counter the constant surge of melancholy.

Miss Smith was watching the passing streets with interest, her fingers laced together and still. When they went around a sharp corner, though, as their speed increased he saw her grasp at the seat beneath her, each knuckle white.

‘It is perfectly safe. My driver is one of the most skilled in London.’

Blue eyes washed over him and then looked back to the outside vistas.

‘People more usually come to see me, your lordship.’

‘You don’t use hackneys, then?’

‘Never.’

This was stated in such a way that left little room for debate and Mrs Greene caught his eye as he frowned, an awkward worry across her face.

Portman Square was now coming into view, the façade of his town house standing on one corner. He hoped that Annabelle Smith would not be flustered by the wealth of it, for in comparison to her living quarters in Whitechapel it suddenly looked enormous.

As they alighted an expression unlike any he had ever seen briefly crossed her face. Shock, he thought, and pure horror, her pallor white and the pulse at her throat fast. His hand reached out to take her arm as he imagined she might simply faint.

‘Are you well, Miss Smith?’

He saw the comprehension of what she had shown him reach her eyes, her shoulders stiffening, but she did not let him go, her fingers grabbing at the material of his jacket.

Then the door opened and his mother stood there, black fury on her face.

‘You cannot bring your doxies into this house, Thornton. I shall simply not allow it. Your valet has told me you were in the company of one of your mistresses, Mrs Castleton, last night and now you dare to bring in these two this morning. Your father, bless his soul, would be rolling in his grave and as for your sister...’

She stopped and twisted a large kerchief, dabbing at her nose as she left them, a discomfited silence all around.

‘I am sorry. My mother is not herself.’

It was all he could think to say, the fury roiling inside him pressed down. He needed Annabelle Smith to see his sister, that was his overriding thought, and he would deal with his mother’s unexpected accusations when he could.